People, action, solutions

The Greenpeace ship MV Arctic Sunrise arrives in the Democratic Republic of Congo

The reality is harsh. It is simple: unless we protect Africa’s natural resources and biodiversity, they will be exploited to the point of devastation. The continent will neither be able to feed its people nor develop those resources it has left.

But all is not lost.

Greenpeace, the international environmental watchdog and lobby group, has been showcasing Africa’s plight to an often unseeing world since the 1990s. Some of its campaigns have included the fight to stop the uncontrolled logging that is destroying the Congo Basin rainforest and the war against the pillaging of the continent’s marine wealth by pirate trawlers and the massive modern fishing fleets from Europe.

Established in 1971, Greenpeace’s sole reason for existence is to expose crimes against the environment wherever they might occur and irrespective who they are committed by. Our job is to challenge governments and companies, big and small, to live up to their promises to protect our environment and guarantee our future.

Today, Africa is the frontline of the war that none of us dare lose.

Who we are

Greenpeace Africa is the direct offshoot of a movement that began in 1971 with a group of people outraged by the US government’s intention to do nuclear testing at Amchitka, a tiny island off Alaska.

We work with local organisations in the various countries, as their partners, to help them to let African voices be heard and African ideas understood. By finding and assisting African expertise and leadership, we hope that we can help find real, sustainable solutions for the entire planet and a greener future.

We don’t have permanent allies or enemies. What we want is open, informed debate about the environmental choices that we can all make. We achieve this through research, lobbying and quiet diplomacy. When that doesn’t work we use high profile, but non-violent direct action – that’s what we’re best known for. You’ve seen our protests on the high seas and on top of power plant cooling towers. It takes guts, but it’s what we believe in.

Today, Greenpeace is active in more than 40 countries across the globe; in the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. We’re the biggest environmental group in the world and we can harness all that different expertise and institutional experience in order to find real solutions to problems wherever they might be.

Saving the rainforests in Brazil provides us tactics to use in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Indonesia. Stopping the big pirate trawler fleets of Senegal requires the same steadfast courage in the little rubber dinghies in the Gulf of Mexico.

The struggle to save our planet is not ours alone. Three million of you feel that way too. Your donations every month help us to remain independent. In our commitment to independence, we refuse donations from governments or corporations.

It is the support of people like you that gives us the courage and the resources to take on the goliaths in our society who would otherwise get away with what they are doing.